Le Carnaval du Parnasse, Mondonville's heroic ballet, was a dazzling triumph at its premiere in 1749, eclipsing Rameau's Zoroastre, which premiered the same year. Dedicated to the Marquise de Pompadour, muse of the arts and the omnipotent favorite of the King, this whimsical carnival is nothing short of a delicious marivaudage: on Mount Parnassus, Apollo and his Muses indulge in feasts of the senses and entertainments of the heart… Mondonville displays prodigious virtuosity throughout, depicting unheard-of orchestral colors and imagining unbridled dances and vast ceremonial choruses comparable to those in his great motets. Alexis Kossenko and his ensemble Les Ambassadeurs ~ La Grande Écurie, joined by the eminent vocal power of the Chœur de Chambre de Namur, have made an exceptional rediscovery of this masterful reincarnation of the splendors of the Court of Louis XV, then at its apogee.

Venus; goddess of sensuality and great orchestrator of pleasures; pulls the strings of opera characters as if they were puppets in the land of Tendre. With great delectation; Marie Perbost invokes the goddess and the heroines of French opera from the century of Louis XV to embody all the victims of passions unleashed by Aphrodite. There are masterpieces and discoveries here; from the satirical mockery of Madness in Rameau’s Platée to the virtuosic pages of Mondonville in Les Fêtes de Paphos. By turns pastoral and piquant; tender and burning; the divine Marie Perbost; supported by Gaétan Jarry; embraces all the music of love under Louis XV. A medley of jesting and fleeting romances; grace and libertinism; experience the delirium of the senses titillated by Eros and Cupid!